Description

New Black Suit is the transcendent new album from Stephen Doster on Atticus Records. Like Arizona, his 2014 solo comeback release, Doster once again self-produced New Black Suit, using the same core studio players that helped make Arizona a critical success. Recorded and mixed by Doster’s longtime studio partner, James Stevens, at EAR Studios in Austin, New Black Suit features the impeccable Kevin Lovejoy (Spoon, John Mayer) on keyboards and piano, master drummer-percussionist, Dony Wynn (Robert Palmer, Dr. John), and bassist extraordinaire, George Reiff (Joe Walsh, Jakob Dylan, Dixie Chicks), who unfortunately passed away from brain cancer shortly before New Black Suit’s completion. Sporting ten new stellar tracks written by Doster, New Black Suit marks a definitive step forward for Doster as a musical artist, smartly demonstrating his mastery of every creative aspect of music making from the songwriting to the performance to the production. From the transcendent opening track and lead single, “Shooting For The Stars” to the elegiac closer and title track, “New Black Suit,” the entire album celebrates the dreamers and visionaries the world lost too soon (“William Melvin Hicks” and “Until The End”), the vicissitudes of life and love (“Something Good” and “Love Like Summertime”), the soul crushing costs of urban sprawl (“You Should’ve Seen This Place” and “Big Cars”) and the redemptive energies found in nature (“Balmorhea” and “You Better Know It”). At the heart of all these songs is the optimism that only comes from having survived life’s ups and downs, and continuing to dream the dream. New Black Suit is the kind of album that rewards repeated listening.